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Horror show screening in Ottawa

Canadian cinema had an excellent year in 2007, thanks to Sarah Polley's astonishing directorial debut with Away From Her (which earned an Oscar nomination for her screenplay) combined with David Cronenberg's stylishly nasty Eastern Promises .

Canadian cinema had an excellent year in 2007, thanks to Sarah Polley's astonishing directorial debut with Away From Her (which earned an Oscar nomination for her screenplay) combined with David Cronenberg's stylishly nasty Eastern Promises.

And 2008 could turn out to be even better. Fugitive Pieces, an affecting screen adaptation of the Anne Michaels novel, recently opened. Adoration, Atom Egoyan's latest foray in quirkiness, will have its world premiere at Cannes this month – and is already getting positive buzz from insiders. Blindness, a co-production involving Japan and Brazil as well as Canada, will open the Cannes Festival on Wednesday. And expectations are exceedingly high for Passchendaele – a $20 million Canadian epic about World War I.

But there's a dark cloud hanging over the future of Canadian movies. It comes in the unlikely form of a bill, currently being debated, that would change the rules of the game under which movies are certified for tax credits – or not.

Welcome to the Bill C-10 Follies, now enjoying an extended run in Ottawa. One hitherto obscure clause has become the focus for the most passionate debate in the history of Canadian cultural policy.

On one side we have representatives of the Harper government, notably Heritage Minister Josée Verner and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, declaring it's necessary to introduce new measures under which a movie could be denied tax credits if, according to certain mysterious guidelines applied by persons unknown, a movie is deemed to contravene public policy.

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Right-wingers like Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College and the Canada Action Family Coalition, are all for C-10 because it's a way of keeping sex and violence off the screen.

On the other side we have people who make and care about movies, including Polley, who quite rightly see this as a way of sneaking in film censorship, and who described the proposed legislation as "dangerous and unacceptable." Why not just let the Criminal Code take care of films that violate the law?

Proponents of the bill say those who miss out on tax credits are still free to make their movies, only without public money. The reality is it's virtually impossible to make a movie in Canada without public money.

The Senate banking committee's hearings on the subject have become the venue for an orgy of self-righteous rhetoric. I've been plowing through the minutes of these hearings, and it's one of the scariest, most Kafkaesque reading experiences I've ever had.

Ellen Shapiro, representing Canadians Concerned About Violence, told the committee that the majority of parents support the return of dignity, good taste and wholesome values to the popular media. How nice.

But great works of art are often shocking. Having spent years in the trenches of film criticism, I'd say "inoffensive" is the worst thing you can call a movie. Egoyan, Cronenberg, Denys Arcand and Deepa Mehta would surely by convicted of making movies that contravene public policy.

Fortunately, we can rely on the federal Liberals to speak up for our artists. And then, after their ringing speeches, they can make sure the bill is not defeated because why would they want to bring down the government and force an election? The voters, after all, might cast their votes in favour of good taste and family values.

If the bill passes, the nation would be spared the horror of being exposed to the wild and crazy inventions of our most talented film artists. Never mind that in the eyes of sane movie lovers everywhere, Canada would look like a banana republic.

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